Bentley ends bad spell in style

Mugove Chigada
Psychologist Bob Rotella was spot on when he concluded that golf is a game of confidence.

Zimbabwean golfer Greg Bentley needed that badly at the Cape Town Open qualifiers on February 19. He got it in style to end his bad spell.

Golfers will always have different approaches when their swing is not working too well for them.

Rather than enduring several nightmares, some go back into their shell, sorting out their confidence.

For some, playing on is the best way to get back on track.

Bentley opted for the latter and what a way to make a comeback! His was loud. Whatever happens now is secondary.

“Definitely, I am pleased with qualifying. I had a bit of pressure this week because I started quite badly in the last two pre-qualifiers, so I needed to, sort of, get some confidence back, so it was nice to get into the tournament and obviously put a good score under the belt,” Bentley was quoted by Sunshine Tour as saying.

After disappointments at the Dimension Data Pro-Am and Eye of Africa PGA Championship qualifiers, the Zimbabwean needed this.

He managed to claim first spot in his group for the Cape Town Open set for February 22 to 25.

The golfer shot a three-under 69 to ensure he would be part of the big boys at King David Mowbray golf club.

Now he has to build on that.

Last year, in the build-up to the Canadian Open, Dustin Johnson admitted that he was struggling with his confidence.

And no matter how much he tried, he was just not getting into the groove for a classy act.

“A little lack of confidence, maybe,” Johnson told Golfchannel in July. “For 10 or 12 months leading up to the Masters, I had been playing really good golf, but it’s just been a little bit of a struggle to get back.”

The star admitted he had to “work just to get back” and the results were coming slowly.

Bentley, like a true professional he is, remained positive as well.

“It is not like I have been playing badly. The last two pre-qualifies I started with a double and triple, so, you just leave yourself with too much to do in a pre-qualifier. “I just started a little bit steady and the game is there so it is nice to gain a little bit of confidence to know that I can shot the score that I need,” Bentley said.

Nyasha Muyambo and Mohammad Rauf Mandhu were part of the group that made the cut in that group.

Bentley admitted he was already under pressure. And after making the first step to a comeback, it gets worse.

“There is, honestly, more pressure because you come all the way down to Cape Town and if you do not make it through this one round, then you do not get paid, or so you do not get a chance to get paid, so it is quite tough like that, but just try and understand the present and try not to think about scores. Just play gold and let score take care of itself and hopefully on the given day your score is good enough,” he said.

Meanwhile, the debate on the confusion sometimes created by the handicap system covered in our last edition, has continued on international stage.

In the past week, indications are new universal system could be implemented by 2020.

“Surely golf would be better off with a universal system, a handicapping Esperanto used and understood by all. That’s what the governing bodies have set out to create,” Golfchannel wrote.

“In a joint announcement Tuesday morning, the USGA and the R&A unveiled a proposal for a World Handicap System (WHS), slated to go into effect in 2020.

“When the system is rolled out the six existing handicapping authorities around the globe — Golf Australia, the Council of National Golf Unions in Great Britain and Ireland, the European Golf Association, the South African Golf Association, the Argentine Golf Association, and the USGA, along with the 15 million golfers in 80 countries they cumulatively represent — will lay aside their differences and begin adhering to the same rules.”